Olive’s Rehabilitation Centre is an informal (“slum”) school located in the suburb of Bombolulu in Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa. It was set up in 2001 to educate, clothe, feed and provide counseling and religious education services to some of Mombasa’s most vulnerable children. The school was founded by Stevens Tsuria Were whilst he worked as a labourer, living close to its current location. Asked by a few of the local children to pray for them because they were hungry he soon found over 40 waiting on his doorstep and began to read with them. Realising that literacy levels were low because the children were not attending schools through social deprivation, he set about creating the children's centre to provide education, free meals and an environment that offers support, counselling and security to children that are orphaned, from broken homes or families where alcohol abuse and other issues inhibit parental support for education and personal development. The centre currently hosts around 130 of the most needy children with many others patiently waiting for the opportunity to join them. Already 100 children have passed through their doors.

GVI volunteers began supporting the centre in July 2009, providing much needed teacher support in the classrooms. Many of the teachers are local volunteers.  Sponsorship has enabled 21 children to be returned to mainstream education in private schools where meals and teacher support ensures the children attend. The majority of these students remain in the top 10% of their classes, a testimony to the quality of education and support the centre provides with minimal resources. 

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Breakfast and lunch for a student for one month is around £2.50 ($4 USD)

Excersise books for a student's school year is around £12 ($20)

A months water bill (drinking, cooking, cleaning and flushing toilets) is around £16 ($26)

A modest monthly wage for a teacher is around £40 ($65)

A month's rent on the school building is around £130 ($212)

To sponsor a student to highschool for one year is around £320 ($523)

Olive Rehabilitation Centre's long-term goal is to purchase a small peice of land to build their own school. This would release them from the pressures of finding monthly donations for rent, and free up funds to invest in the school's education and feeding programmes. It would also allow the school to expand into highschool age, meaning that relationships developed through a student's formative years could continue to be fostered.

One and a half acres of land in Bombolulu would cost around £40,000 ($65,000)

To keep up to date with our volunteers work with Olives Rehabiltion Centre, and our two side projects Tumaini HIV Orphange and Precious Vision School, please visiti our blog site http://www.gviolives.blogspot.com/